You Can Have an Internet Based Business

People make money on the Internet by selling their own products and services, or by selling other peoples through affiliate marketing programs or via drop-shippers.

Despite the attractions of affiliate marketing, selling physical goods on the Internet is actually one of the easiest ways to actually turn a profit if you have the right kind of product.

Some people will make and sell their own products thru on online auctions – products such as clothes, fashion goods, jewelry and accessories, hand crafted cards, woodcraft items, toys, games, handy inventions and so on.  If you are already making a product and looking for a source for marketing it an Internet business will be one of the quickest and easiest ways for you to find an outlet for your products.

If you want to escape from your day job or simply want to earn some extra cash without having to leave the comfort of your home then setting up a home based business on the Internet might be the answer for you.

There are several options for setting up a home based Internet business. When you are just getting started it is probably wisest to choose just one option and work on it until you are making money from it. Once you are in profit, expand your field of activities by adding more products or by finding a different way to promote your business that will complement what you are already doing.

If you do not have a product of your own to sell, don’t despair. If you live in a place that has special or regional products unavailable elsewhere then you could offer those on the Internet. In this case, you would buy either from local shops or from the manufacturers and resell the goods online.

When you have something to sell, the quickest way to get it online is to offer it on an auction site such as EBay. This is also a useful way to test the market. If the item sells quickly and if you can make a good profit then you will want to repeat the process and also set up a website of your own to sell from.

Setting up a WordPress blog or website is not expensive nowadays. Web hosting costs less than $10 a month, and a domain name costs around $10 a year. With WordPress and the many free and premium themes such as ShoppersPress available that enable a techless person such as me to build a very professional site of their own.

Finally, set up an account with an online transaction service such as PayPal, AlertPay or MoneyBookers so that you will be able to add “Buy Now” buttons to your site.

The next step will be to start marketing your goods. The good news here is that on the Internet this can be done either free of charge or on a shoestring budget.

You can promote your website by setting up a blog and posting articles about your products and related topics on it. Write articles and post them to online article directories. A fast way to bring traffic to your website is to spend some money on Google’s Adwords program and set up some pay per click ads.

When orders start to come in you will of course have to fulfill them promptly. You may find yourself getting very busy as you will need to contact your customers to update them on their order status, pack and post the orders, and either make or purchase new stocks of items and packaging materials.

In short, you will have set up a successful home based business on the Internet. Good luck!

Getting Started in Internet Marketing (part 4)

Now that you have got a product, the next logical step would be to sell it. Here’s where many newbie Internet marketers get it wrong.

The biggest mistake you can make is to set up a website, write about your ebook on the website and expect people to visit your website in droves and buy your ebook. It does not work that way. In other words, if you think you can ‘create it and they will come’, you are mistaken. Even with targeted keywords, great website design and a killer product, hardly anyone will find your website if you do not promote it.

So there are a few more steps to take before you will see your first sale.

Firstly, you need to design your website. In the past, you could get by with a simple two page website – a sales letter and a thank you or download page. As recently as 4 years ago, such simple websites would still get ranked by Google. Actually 4 years is a long time in Internet marketing and a lot has happened since then. The most significant development was the Google Slap.

The Google Slap is the term used to mean that Google now wants your website to contain quality content and not just a sales pitch. These days, if you just put up a 2 page website without good content, Google will not rank it well. In other words, you will find your website in page 1,245 in Google’s search results or something like that.

So when you design your website, you have to make sure that it has more than just a sales page. There are many ways to design a website and each person has his or her own preference. A good practice would be to make your website have at least 8 pages – a home page, a sales page, a blog, a thank you or download page, a privacy policy, a disclaimer (especially if your product is connected with making money), a contact page and an about us page.

Briefly, a home page would contain a welcome message and an introduction to your website. It should also contain an opt-in box where you collect the names and emails of visitors so that you can build your list. To incentivize visitors to give you their names and emails, you need to provide a freebie like a short report, video, audio or a newsletter. Make your freebie connected to your niche topic.

A blog would contain the latest news in your niche, interesting articles or your personal teaching on your niche. Many Internet marketers and webmasters put their blog in a separate directory on their website. That means the blog URL would be http://www.mydomain.com/blog. Alternatively, you could purchase another domain with the same domain name but different extension as your blog. Then you could link your blog to your main website. This gives your main website added ‘link juice’ in Google’s eyes.

‘Link juice’ is the term referring to how many links are pointing to your website. The more links you have, the better it is for your website. You need both external and internal links for your website. External links are other websites linking to yours and internal links are internal pages of your website that link to each other.

All the other pages of your website are self-explanatory. Once you have your website up, the next thing you want to do is promote it. That will be covered in the next article.

Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 1)

SEO, PPC, PPA, CPA, SERP, LSI, Google slap, sandbox, the list goes on. Welcome to the world of Internet Marketing. It’s hardly a wonder that people suffer from information overload. If you find yourself drowning in this labyrinth of paths leading you in a thousand different directions, you need to realize that success in Internet Marketing depends not on doing a lot of things but only doing a few things right.

The first thing you have to settle within yourself is whether you are looking to build a business with Internet Marketing or merely engage in it as a hobby. A business means that you intend to make enough money through Internet Marketing to at least replace your day job income. If it is a hobby then you are looking to Internet Marketing as a part time activity to supply you with some extra pocket money. This decision is the basis of everything else you do because it determines the amount of time and effort you put into it and also the actual structure of your business or hobby.

If you intend to make Internet Marketing merely a hobby, then you do not need a website, a product, a list, any JV partners or affiliates. You can do basic affiliate marketing by selling other people’s products. You need to sign up with an open affiliate marketing website like Clickbank. An open affiliate marketing system practiced by Clickbank is where you do not need your own website and there is no application process to become an affiliate. Without your own website you would not be able to be an affiliate with closed affiliate systems like Commission Junction (they have an application process that requires a website).

In Clickbank, there are thousands of products you can sign up as an affiliate for. You will be given an affiliate link and all you do is to get people to click on your link. You can do that for free by setting up free websites on Web 2.0 platforms like Squidoo or Hubpages or Blogging platforms like Wordpress or Blogger. You can do a search on these and you will get their websites where you can create your own website or blog. Yes, a website set up this way is your own but you are limited in some functionality because these are free websites hosted on the platform’s servers. Nevertheless, they are good enough to drive traffic to your affiliate link.

All you do is design your website or blog with some good content related to the affiliate offer you are marketing and insert your affiliate link into your content. Some web 2.0 platforms like Hubpages have strict rules about the number of affiliate links you can have in your content, so just make sure you abide by their rules.

Internet Marketing is a numbers game, so the more of such websites and blogs you create to drive traffic to your affiliate link, the better it is. Sooner or later, some people will click on your links and if they buy the product that you recommend, you get your commission from it. That’s all there is to making some spare cash through Internet Marketing.

You may want to start your Internet marketing journey this way. But after sometime, if you want to progress further and do Internet Marketing as a business, then it becomes another ball game altogether!

(Please see Part 2 in this series.)

Getting Started in Internet Marketing (part 2) – Market Research

There are many ways to make a living online. But no matter which route you choose, it all begins with market research. You have to find a group of buyers who have a common problem or need. Then all you need to do is sell them things that solve the problem or meet the need.

Market research can be divided into two parts – finding a profitable niche and finding long tail keywords within that niche. The good news is that there are many free tools available to do this. Some of the best tools are provided by Google itself. So the first thing to do is sign up for an account with Google. Once you have done that, go to Google’s search-based keyword tool at www.google.com/sktool. Type in the words ‘buy, purchase, order, get’ (without quotation marks) into the search field. The sktool will list out 800 words or terms that contain these buying keywords together with other useful data like level of competition, searches per month etc. All you have to do is choose the term that you feel is most suitable for yourself, preferably one that has at least 2,500 searches per month.

Next, click on the icon that looks like a magnifying glass next to the search term that you have chosen. This will take you to Google Insights for Search, another free tool from Google at www.google.com/insights. It will automatically search the term that you have chosen and produce the relevant data at Google insights. Scroll down to the bottom part of the page and you will see other related search terms. Take note of all the related search terms that you find.

Now you would have about 10 buying keyword terms in a particular niche. This basically indicates that there are people searching for information to solve a problem or meet a need in this niche. Next, you should investigate further into how big a market this niche is and get more keyword ideas.

Go to amazon.com, ebay.com, magazines.com and clickbank.com. Put the main keyword of the niche into the search field and see if there are products that are listed in these websites within this niche. Chances are you will find products in all these websites pertaining to your niche. Briefly review some of the products for ideas – both keyword ideas and product ideas. The next step is to find long tail keywords.

To do this, go to Google’s external keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Type in your 10 keywords and it will generate a list of related keywords. Take note of the keyword phrases with at least 3 words in them (long tail keywords) and that produce at least 2,500 searches per month.

Now go to the Google search engine at www.google.com and type in the main keyword in quotation marks. As you are typing, Google will give you related search terms. Take note of the long tail keywords. Once you hit the search button, Google will list out all the websites related to your keyword (this is called the SERP or Search Engine Results Page). Take note of the number of websites listed (it is listed at the top right hand corner of the page). You are aiming for keywords with a maximum of 1,000,000 websites. If it is significantly higher than 1 million, then the keyword is too competitive. Do the same thing with each of the keywords that you have and choose those which have less than 1 million competing websites.

For each of the keywords you type into Google, look at the bottom of the SERP and you will find more suggested related keywords. Click on them and you will find even more keywords. Drill down into the keywords as deeply as you can until you find long tail keywords with less than 1 million competing websites.

If you have done your market research well enough, you will now have identified a niche with ready buyers and the long tail keywords (about 10 will do) they use to search in the search engine for information on a product to buy. The next step would be Product Research and Creation which will be covered in the next article.

Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 3)

Now that you have identified your target market and gathered your 10 or so long tail keywords, it’s time to create your product. Product creation may take you anywhere from one day to two weeks so during this period, it is wise to put some other steps into action also. Here are 2 things you should do simultaneously with product creation.

First, you should register a domain name. Go to namecheap.com or godaddy.com. Choose one with your long tail keyword inside. If the exact long tail keyword has already been taken, try adding another word that makes it attractive, such as ‘best’, ‘tips’, ‘online’, ‘center’ etc. For example ‘organic farming’ can become ‘organicfarmingtips’.

As for the extension to choose, go for a .com if possible. If that has been taken for the domain name you want, take either a .net or .org. The next best option other than these three would be a .biz or .info. These are the common ones considered to be search engine friendly.

The reason why you should register a domain name now is that it takes 24-48 hours to propagate, and you will only be able to upload content into that domain after it has propagated. So by registering a domain name while you work on product creation, you save time.

The second thing you should do while creating your product is join relevant forums in your niche. Every niche has forums where people interested in their niche hang out. To find these forums, type the name of your niche followed by the word ‘forum’ (without quotes) at the end into Google’s search engine. So, for organic farming, it would be ‘organic farming forums’. Join at least 4 forums.

Joining a forum is easy. Just go to the sign up page and fill up the required fields. Every forum allows you to insert a signature. Here’s where you should put your website URL with some catchy statement. If your website has not been set up yet, you can add your signature later.

One feature to utilize in your signature is BB Codes. BB Codes is like html. For your signature you only need to know 2 BB Codes – the one for hyperlinking and the one for making your words bold. To hyperlink your words to your website URL, the opening BB Code is [url=http://www.yourdomain.com] and the closing BB Code is [/url]. For example, if you want to hyperlink the sentence, ‘Secret Tips to Organic Farming for Good Health’, type [url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic Farming for Good Health[/url] in your signature column. Now anyone who clicks on that sentence will be directed to your website.

And if you want to bold your words, just add the bold BB Codes which are [b] and [/b] at the beginning and the end of the string of code above. So it would appear like this – [b][url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic Farming for Good Health[/url][/b]. Most forums have BB Code on by default. But check just in case.

For more BB Codes, just Google it.

It’s important to join forums as soon as possible because it takes time to build relationships. So post anything you want into these forums everyday (take 30 minutes a day). If you aren’t very knowledgeable in that niche, just post intelligent questions. The more posts you make, the better your standing in the forum. The relationships you make in these forums will be very valuable to you when your product is ready.

Another important thing to do while at forums is to look for the most frequently asked questions and most common problems faced by the members in the forums. Take note of these because you want to include these into your product.

Now for product creation. The easiest way to create your product is to go to Amazon and type in the main keyword for your niche. Amazon will probably produce a list of books on that topic. Find one you like and look into the contents page. Copy the contents page and re-write the chapter titles the best you can. Also include the questions and problems that you found in the forums into the chapters.

The fastest way to produce your product is to outsource it. Go to elance.com or guru.com and post a job for a researcher to research the list of chapters you have compiled. This person only has to cut and paste information from various sources according to the chapters you give him. It should not take more than 2 or 3 days.

Once you get the research back, look for a writer to re-write the research materials into an ebook of 80 to 100 pages in length. This should take no longer than a week. You can find good writers from the Philippines who work at cheap rates. Be prepared to pay about $100 for the researcher and $200 for the writer.

So in about 10 days you should have your product ready. Now you need a designer to design your ebook cover and website. What to do from here onwards will be covered in the next article.

Using WordPress to Create a Directory of Websites

People go to Google to search for web sites that have content on a certain topic that interests them. Once a keyword is entered and the Search button is clicked, Google returns a list of web sites that contain the keyword. It is not unusual for Google to get millions of web sites with that keyword. It is always assumed that the very first site on the list will contain the most relevant content. That way, one would click on the web sites listed on the first, second, or third pages, rarely venturing beyond the tenth page.

However, some surfers complain that many of the sites they have visited contain only ads and very little content. Most sites sell products, and any information one can get will be about the goods being sold. Many are becoming frustrated; even if the Internet contains a lot of information, sometimes it is difficult to find the information you need. One way to mitigate this growing frustration is to build a large directory of web sites that your visitors might enjoy. For example, if you are targeting visitors who want information about back aches, you can then create a web site directory full of links to similar sites.

As I have told you in the past I am Techless Terry and always looking for ideas that work great with WordPress. Recently I found a free WordPress directory theme bDirectoryPress, created by a great guy by the name of Mark Fail, who is also the creator of ShopperPress and other great WordPress themes. Mark also has premium themes but the free themes are great too! Since discovering DirectoryPress I have started building a couple of directories and have upgrraded to the premium theme for some extra features.

Anyway, if you want to check the DirectoryPress theme just CLICK HERE and if you decide the purchase the premium theme this tired old man will make a couple of dollars to put into my grandsons college fund. If you take advantage of the free DirectoryPress theme I will still be happy for you have taken my advice and are trying something new.

What are the advantages of creating this web site directory using WordPress? Will, if you have been reading this blog you already know that WordPress is great but here are a few more advantages:

1. Your visitors will save time searching for web sites they will enjoy.

If you can write descriptions to the sites in your directory, your visitors will have an overview of the sites they plan to visit. That way, they can zero in on the sites they need much faster.

2. Your visitors will bookmark your web site instead of the individual site they will visit.

The list in our Bookmarks begins to get cluttered once we add more and more sites. If surfers can have a “jumping board” where they can go to other sites, they will be saving that site. This will mean surfers going to that site again and again.

Your web site directory can be that “jumping board” to a particular niche. You will then be getting traffic from users looking for information on your niche.

3. You can monetize your directory.

You can design your web site such that ads from AdSense will blend naturally with your site. You can also include affiliate links in your directory. However, ensure that you do not overdo this, as surfers might think your directory contains only advertisements. Provide good content, such as descriptions of the listed sites, as mentioned above, and your visitors will often return to your site.

By creating a directory of web sites you do not only help your visitors save time searching for information, you also have that opportunity to earn some money from your site.

Is SEO and SEM the Same?

Terms are thrown around on the internet the way one might mix hash and so often we just become confused. If you were an expert at the internet you probably wouldn’t be visiting a non techie site like Terry Lile the Techless Blooger. Fortunately for me we all aren’t technical minded for that still leaves me a following to share my blabber with. Let me ask you, Do you really understand the difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? Read more

Why Use Google Analytics for Your WordPress Blog

You have built a WordPress blog or website and perhaps you are wondering if you should use Google Analytics on it. So what is Google Analytics anyway and will it work with WordPress? Google Analytics is a free statistical tool that you can use to analyze your blogs visitors. Once you start using this tool you will find it very easy to use. You will first need to sign up with Google for this free service and add the URL of your blog. Once you do you get a bit of Java Script code that you add to the pages you want to track. Read more

Publish Your Own eBook at No or Low Costs

If you have spent much time surfing the Internet or are on many email list you see a lot of eBooks offered for sale. Perhaps you have your own WordPress blog and figure this would be a great place to market your own book. There is obviously a demand for eBooks or you would not see so many of them. With a quick Google search you will find eBooks that range from raising chickens or children to building your own WordPress Blog or home based business and just about everything else you can think of.  The fact is that while some eBook subjects will certainly be better seller than others there is a market for just about anything. You may just be wondering how a person with a tight budget can go about writing and publishing their own eBook. Here are several tips that may interests you! Read more

Paid Membership Site Benefits and Criteria

WordPress is a great for promoting your traditional business, internet marketing, setting up a personal blog or even setting up a website for an club or other organization. Another use that one might consider WordPress for is the development of a paid membership site.

What are the Benefits of a Paid Membership Site Anyway?
First of all a paid membership site provides recurring income. A small amount paid monthly by every member can quickly add up to either valuable extra income or even a full-time work from home income. If you were to have several membership sites and if you have a higher priced membership fee, you can quickly earn a very substantial annual income.

Why Would a Person Use a Paid Membership Site?
People will buy information that they could probably find on the Internet themselves if they had time and knew where to look, but often there is a higher perceived value when they have paid for it.

How Do You Attract Members to a Paid Membership Site?
The challenge then is to find customers and then provide them with such good value that they will retain their membership month after month and hopefully also recommend your site to others because you pay them a generous affiliate fee.

There are four main criteria you need to consider to achieve this and they are:

1. Your site must be in an established membership type market.

2. You must provide excellent value content or service

3. You need to use software that will password-protect your site so that non-paying members cannot get the content for free.

4. A marketing system to attract new subscribers and retain them once they sign up.

Criteria 1 – Your Membership-Site Market

In assessing your potential membership-site market, consider both online and off-line habits. Ask yourself whether people with an interest in this subject would buy monthly magazines, belong to a club or organization about it and perhaps whether there are books on the subject on Amazon’s best popular seller lists. Online, check if there are eBooks that sell well, blogs, forums or other on-line communities about this subject.

The topic must be popular enough to have many potential subscribers or you will be wasting your time. It is worth offering some free material, perhaps an ebook on your subject to see how many people have an interest it it. Another strategy to test your market is to set up a simple survey, asking what issues people have. You can offer free membership to your new site as an incentive for people to reply; the answers you receive will guide you as to what kind of concerns people have on this subject.

The information most in demand on-line is that which solves someone’s immediate problem, so it is worth considering whether your content or service solves just a one-time problem or whether there could be an ongoing or related issues that you can address.

An example of a one-off problem would perhaps be a remedy for snoring and for an ongoing problem, think of new parents, who have many worries and sleepless nights when their baby cries, perhaps in the middle of the night and there is no-one they can ask for advice. A membership site that contains suggested solutions for the numerous problems new parents face would be a valuable resource for them.

Criteria 2 – Quality Content

The four main types of content are: written, audio, video and web-based software solutions. Naturally, the media type you use will depend on your site topic as some will be more relevant that others. Most sites will include a significant percentage of written material as this is still the primary method of sharing information on the Internet, but audio recordings are increasing popular because people can download them and listen when they are walking, driving, exercising or away from their computer for any other reason.

Video content is preferred when the information you are providing is instructional; “how-to” in pictures or a video can make a process very easy to understand compared with following a written list of instructions.

Another situation where pictures are helpful is showing symptoms of something. For example, for the new parent site mentioned above, there could be photos of the types of spots or rashes a small child might have on their body if they have caught any of the various common childhood complaints such as measles, chickenpox or have been bitten by an insect.

There are many sources of good content apart from writing your own if you are qualified to do so. Your own material is obviously the cheapest, but will take the longest to prepare and you need to know enough about your topic to keep providing fresh material on a regular basis.

Use other people’s material by utilizing royalty free articles from article directories such as ezinearticles.com and free content sites, free to use videos from YouTube, metacafe.com or ehow.com or good quality PLR (private label rights).

Outsourcing is another option that will be less time-consuming although you will have costs for the ghost-writer or freelancer you contract to produce your work. Apart from the well-known elance.com & rentacoder.com, there are hundreds of other sources as a simple web search on “outsourcing” will reveal. If you plan to outsource on a regular basis, it is worth the time and effort to find a freelancer and develop a relationship with them, rather than going through a ghost-writing service provider.

Interviews with experts are something you can do yourself with basic equipment. Prepare a list of open-ended questions before the interview and send a copy to the person you will be interviewing two or three days beforehand. Any sooner and they might forget about it and any later doesn’t give them time to prepare.

The following are some suggestions for interview questions that will give an expert the opportunity to give you excellent material for your membership site:
1. What is so good about ………?
2. How did you get involved in ………?
3. What do you consider the top 3 things someone should know about ……?
4. What would you suggest would be the best way to get started?
5. How long would it take to be proficient at ……….?

An hour is a good length for a value interview but you may want to go longer and edit the script later. This is easily done even with a free audio editor such as audacity.

Criteria 3 – membership site software to protect your subscriber’s investment and save you time

If you can, invest in a specialized memberships-site software package or script. There are quite a number of good choices of varying prices, for example Membergate, Memberspeed, & Wordpress plugins like Wordpress Wishlist, Digital Access Pass (DAP), YourMember & aMember. The advantages of using one of these is that so many of the member functions are done automatically, for example:

1. Membership levels
2. Membership types
3. RSS Feed encryption so that non-paying members cannot access your content through the RSS feed
4. Sequential delivery so that someone cannot sign up and download all the material & then unsubscribe – the longer a person is a member, the more content they have access to
5. Payment gateways – preferably more than just Paypal
6. Training and Support
7. A good strong guarantee

Criteria 4 – Strategies for Recruiting & retaining members

1. Instead of focusing on trying to sell memberships, focus on how how one particular article of your content can solve a specific problem a person might have so that you are providing a solution to that problem and also giving one month’s membership to the site for free.

2. Use free advertising by writing & submitting articles & reports, posting on blogs & forums, make squidoo lenses, hubs & other web pages.

3. Buy Pay per Click advertising and banner ads etc

4. List your membership site on Clickbank, Paydotcom etc

5. Email your list & if you don’t have one, form a joint venture partnership with someone who does & pay them a generous affiliate commission.

There are many other marketing tactics that have been written about at great length and can be found in a web search.

In summary, if you can address the four main criteria of using an established membership type market, providing premium value content, using appropriate membership software and attracting subscribers, a paid membership site can become a very profitable business model.

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